They Live In A Picture Book
by fascinationex
Summary: Carmen Sandiego and Wally meet for coffee. [Prompt fill for Valentine's Day 2018. Silly, no warnings, one shot only.]


Apparently Wally is Waldo in the USA! He's Wally in this fic. Just to clarify. I knew the UK version growing up.

This prompt was from tumblr user putsoneinmind.

* * *

Carmen gets the bill before they even find their table.

"It's the least I can do," she says airily.

She takes advantage of having him there and picks an outside table, right out in the open, beneath a big canvas umbrella on the side of the street.

Carmen throws her coat over the back of her chair, folds the day's newspaper over and tosses it onto the empty seat at the next table. A black and white picture of her own face, folded in half at the nose, stares up from the back page. WANTED, it reads in all caps.

She crosses her legs when she sits. She is not oblivious to the way his eyes track the long lines of her legs.

"I shouldn't say so. You could have refused to come out today," Wally points out, tugging at the cuff of his hideously striped jumper. "Or stood me up."

She eyes him. He's not really her type – sweet, young, badly dressed Englishmen? Not exactly – but he's been… useful, once or twice. Maybe more often than that.

Honestly, Carmen's been scheduling her working trips around Wally's vacation plans for three years now. Obviously he's not always available – she has her own schedule, and there are some places that Wally would never visit.

He should be looking at her, but she follows his eyes and finds him looking at a poster on a bollard across the street.

"A lot of people are looking for you."

He IS looking at her, she realises after a moment – her face is over there too, in bright colour this time: soft brown skin and dark eyes, beneath the dramatic diagonal slash of a red hat. That's her, all right. HAVE YOU SEEN THIS WOMAN?

"You'd be surprised," she says blandly. When he looks over at her, she gives him a crimson smile.

A waitress brings her a coffee and him a sundae that looks positively lethal, all huge scoops of vanilla ice cream barber-striped with strawberry syrup. There's a red and white striped wafer roll sticking out the top, and six or seven candied strawberries tumbling around the top of it.

"I guess when you have an aesthetic, you stick to it," she says, although she feels a little queasy even looking at it.

For a career criminal, Carmen has a notoriously weak stomach. It's one of the reasons she sends warnings ahead of time – she never runs into civilians in her professional life anymore. Although she's never felt that applied to actual food before being confronted with this very sundae at this very moment.

"What do you mean?" Wally asks, dipping a spoon into his sundae. Fascinatingly, the spoon's handle is red and white barber striped. Carmen glances at her own place setting and finds that hers is entirely stainless steel.

She takes a sip of her coffee and finds it weak, but she doesn't say anything. "Never mind."

"I like the hat," he tells her, as though that's his best guess for what she might be talking about.

"Thank you."

She watches him demolish his sundae in silence, and tries not to imagine how it must taste. Meanwhile her sharp eyes are cataloguing how he fiddles with his spoon, how often he glances up at her, how quick his fingers are…

He's nervous.

Carmen slides the soft leather upper of her boot up his ankle, just to watch him jump.

How cute.

Maybe sweet, badly dressed Englishmen aren't her type, but there's something to he said for novelty…

"Erm," he says, and she gives him an enquiring look.

"Excuse me, sir?"

They both look sideways at the interruption and find themselves face to face with a uniformed officer. He has big shoulders and a handlebar moustache that Carmen finds mildly ridiculous. His eyes pass right over her – they are glued, inexplicably but predictably to Wally.

Carmen doesn't really understand the phenomenon – his outfit is bad, yes, but it's not _that_ hideous – but it's reliable.

"Sorry to interrupt, but we're asking all sorts in the area. Have you seen this woman?"

Wally blinks at the paper in the man's hand.

Then he looks up at Carmen.

Carmen meets his eyes steadily. She pulls the tiny spoon from her coffee cup, licks it and raises her eyebrows.

"Erm," says Wally slowly, "no?"

The officer grunts like he's not impressed but he didn't really expect him to answer differently. "Well, if you see her, phone it in. She's an internationally wanted thief, you understand?"

His eyes are still fixed on Wally.

"…Yes, I understand," Wally says helplessly, in a tone that indicates quite the opposite.

"Well, sorry to interrupt. You have a nice day now."

The officer never once looks her way before he leaves. She still doesn't quite relax until he's gone, moved on to harassing a new bystander.

They're canvassing the area. Unbelievable. She'll have to ask Wally to escort her to the underground – which he will, of course. He's a sweet boy.

"How are you _doing_ that?" Wally wonders in bafflement, eyebrows knitting together behind his huge glasses.

"It's a mystery," Carmen drawls. She knocks her booted foot against his under the table again, less suggestive this time and more casually familiar. He still twitches. "What is it you wanted to see me for, anyway?"

He gives her an uncomfortable look, but after a moment's silence he opens his mouth again. "I was hoping you could help with something. Professionally."

Interesting. "I'm listening," she says, leaning forward.

With her full attention on him, focused and sharp, Wally swallows.

"It's… It's about a man. His name's Odlaw…"

* * *

If you liked something about this feel free to leave me a comment and let me know what that was. Otherwise have a good morning.


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